Franz Köhler (trade unionist)

Franz Ernst Köhler (born November 27, 1873 in Theißen / Province of Saxony , † May 22, 1941 in Hamburg ) was a German trade unionist and chairman of the German Transport Workers' Association , a forerunner of today's Verdi union .

The son of a miner has been going to sea since graduating from elementary school before settling in Hamburg as a port worker in 1901 . He had already joined the seaman's association before and was elected to the association's board of directors in 1902. After the founding of the transport workers' association, he was elected chairman in 1910 and went to Flensburg until 1914 , where he also sat on the city council for the SPD . After the First World War, in which he served in the Navy , Köhler was reappointed to the section management of the seafarers in the transport workers' association, from 1921 as section head. In this function he determined the collective bargaining policy of the association during the Weimar Republic and campaigned for codetermination as well as for the seafarers' benefit funds. From 1924 he was also a member of the board of directors of the invalids, widows and orphans' fund of the See-Berufsgenossenschaft . From 1922 to 1933, Köhler was chairman of the action committee of professional seamans' associations. He gave up this post in March 1933 - possibly under pressure from the new National Socialist rulers - and lived in Berlin as an early retiree.

literature

• Angela Graf: Köhler, Franz . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 4 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 195-196 .
• Rüdiger Zimmermann: 100 years of ÖTV . The story of a union and its predecessor organizations. Vol. 2: Biographies. Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-922454-44-5 , p. 117 f.

supporting documents

1. ↑ Hamburg registry office 06b: death register . No. 305/1941.